


early bird

by hotmess_ex_press



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band), Triple H (Korea Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fear of Change, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Multi, Possibly Unrequited Love, Self-Hatred, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, back on my stage name bullshit, it's just that she's not as real to him, it's not that hui loves hyuna less, pretend my lazy ass got this out before shalala
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 02:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18540004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmess_ex_press/pseuds/hotmess_ex_press
Summary: hui waits, and waits. nothing happens. air rustles through the room, through his head. he is a watermill scraping against the solid mass that is frustration, sifting and sifting to findsomethingbut coming up with an echo every time.i don't want to be in love.





	early bird

**Author's Note:**

> also: not related to people talk. don't be fooled  
> enjoy!

they didn't stick around long enough to say _goodbye_ , and hui supposes he can't blame them. stick around--for him? he isn't worth the words.

(hui has _words_. hui has words enough to fill out the hollow spaces between his ribs, enough to overflow and trickle, salty and strange, from his eyes, enough to stretch into chains that squeeze around his heart. but none of them ever stick to anything but the tip of his pencil.)

he wants to be selfish. he wants to wish them back into his life, if only for an hour, a minute, a moment. if only to let them know. _miss you_. on the off chance that they would, for once, listen.

 _if you didn't fall in love_ , hui would never, ever say out loud, _we could have been more than a one-hit wonder_.

perhaps hyojong will hear his thoughts, even from all those miles and changed numbers and happy smiles away. hear, but never _care_. hui could stand it. that's what he is meant for, after all: being heard. nothing more.

 _if you didn't fall in love_ , hui would never tell hyuna, _i could have_.

it's stupid. they're content. they're in love, and love is rich and right and perfect and who the _hell_ would hui be to deny that? to be so greedy as to want it for himself, when he is the last person who deserves it.

lee hwitaek. lee hwitaek, still and finally.

it's a slap to the face in the name of _you are unlovable_. after everything. after every teasing glance and teasing touch and teasing kiss. he is still dispensable to them. a heavy chapter in the story of their lives. hwitaek steals hyojong's pillow, and hui pretends hyojong gave it to him.

shinwon frowns and sees right through him. he's hardened in a way that hui admires, but hides that fact in a way that terrifies him.

"it's your fault," shinwon tells him. it's a harsh truth that fills hui's mouth with excuses that taste like nothing but blood. "you didn't have to be scared. only takes three words."

hui isn't sure which three, but the delivery leaves no room for disagreement. he ponders. _i'll miss you. please don't leave. i need you. we need you. cube needs you. i'm always deserted. please please please. stop hurting me. i love you._

and here, he'll add an extra word. just to tip it over the edge: _both_.

( _i love you both._ )

if hyojong and hyuna birthed a mess of desire and secrets and scandal, hui's love could be like a cherry on top. indulgent. that's what _want_ is. nothing but a sticky trap of touch and cherry juice. _love me someday._

 

 

 

 

(if he had only dared to kiss back. perhaps, instead of a cement wall, a glass one. hyojong and hyuna on one side, hands in each other's and not on hui's.

perhaps, instead of a glass wall, a glass box. hui on the inside, fated to watch. hyojong and hyuna, free. a hand on the lock, a hand removed in the name of _you have so much to stay_ [trapped] _for_. a breath fogging up the glass.

perhaps, instead of a glass box, a metal cage. hyuna could dart forward, kiss him through the bars, dance away as soon as hui reaches out. hyojong would look on with a sparkle in his eye, the slow waltz with insanity. smirking, the lucky bastard and the almost-lover almost-love almost-touch, all at once.

 _would they really be so cruel_. hui asks himself.

there is an answer in the tattoos splashed across their skin, hyojong's slow laugh, hyuna's scarlet lips. it is torture. they are already cruel enough in the way they cannot be his.

but, and hui must remember this, he did _not_ kiss back.

the cement wall stands.)

 

 

 

 

"ten-tastic!" hui still cheers, because it all sounds the same anyway and his voice is drowned out every time and _hyojong is gone_ but hui's shattered heart can count for two. shinwon kicks his calf, hard enough to bruise. it's fine. bruises linger; something hui can keep for himself.

kino is trying. hyunggu is trying harder but hui will never _not_ hear hyojong's voice behind his obnoxious lyrics in naughty boy. with hyojong's lack of care it sounded fine but hyunggu is lost and trying to fill in shoes that are too narrow for him to squish his smile through and yet too large for him to replicate and he's _stuck_ and it all just grates miserably against hui's ears, _gugu! gugu! nunununununu--_

kino is trying for his hyungs but hyunggu is just trying not to scream. hyunggu is just trying to vomit quietly enough for jinho not to notice.

"you're a bad leader," yuto sobs. surely the whole world can hear. the whole universe. all their dying universe. no one cares. "you let hyojong go and now you're letting hyunggu go and you're just too busy wasting, wasting away! i hate you! i _hate_ you--"

wooseok slams into the room and drags yuto away for a nap. _shh. shh._ wooseok is only not falling apart at the seams because he never had any. he is not cloth he is a plastic bag and he's dragging the rest of them like he's not stretched to the breaking point. already he is tearing because he's only got hui by the foot: _sorry hyung_. wooseok is numb. wooseok is numb because he's stupid, or maybe he's stupid because he's smart enough to know numb equals plastic and plastic equals fake but fake equals no room to feel too deep.

hui goes back to bed and presses his thumb into the bruises on his legs. maybe he'll thank shinwon later, for giving him something familiar and overpowering. purple is a weighty color.

naughty boy was a mistake. not only that, it was a lie. a big fat fucking lie, second only to the one they're all living.

_i'll promise you_

_i'll support you forever_

_if i die tomorrow--_ (thank my killer.)

hui can't promise anything. hyojong is gone and hyunggu is breaking and yuto is breaking and wooseok is worn thin and shinwon is too angry to break and changgu hasn't come home in a week. if hui is going by pieces of heart they add up to millions. billions. so many. infinity-tastic.

 

 

 

 

red thumbs red thumbs red lips red for the blood dripping from hui's cracked heart red for love red for passion red for hyojong's anger as he slammed his head against the bedroom wall _goddammit hui--_

the industry is changing.

the industry is changing and everyone knows it. the third generation will die out and drag _freedom_ along in its subtle undoing.

hui is undoing. he is sick and dirty, peel away his skin and there it is.

he doesn't _want_ it to change.

he wants to starve for fame and lust after those shiny ugly plastic awards, accept them with a shiny ugly plastic smile. he wants to starve in the most primitive sense of the word. chalky pills and two sweaters and judging progress by _how many lines_ and _how many ribs can you count_. all of them. beautiful is a two-sided word and hui falls on the side of _be a skeleton_. better than hongseok, trying not to get swept away, clinging to _don't sleep: work out: exercise: run until you vomit: choke yourself with the bench press: be better_.

it's always about being better, but hui is the opposite. instead, he sleeps and sleeps, to keep himself from eating.

(not in front of the cameras. eat then and only then. not like hyuna. men can't have problems. men eat. boys eat. boys can't have problems. boys don't cry. boys can't feel. everything is ice.)

hui doesn't want it to change.

when it's written in their contracts, black and white and _red_ , hui can pretend. he can pretend that something as silly as signing a paper can seal your heart. he can pretend that love doesn't exist. (he did.)

and if this wall of pretending falls (it did) and hui stumbles to hyojong's feet (he did), he can pretend that he is only resting, stopping and staring in the trail of destruction hyojong's heart lays, but _know_ that hyojong can't love, either. (hui did, pretended until he believed it. played his part well.)

but hyojong didn't; hyojong broke the rules and _loved_. fast and hard. brought it all down in one. danced over hui's web of lies, crunching like bones under his lithe feet; watched it all crumble.

this is what is left. wretched pieces. hui scrabbles for a past that would leave everyone even more lost than the future ever could. he wants to starve. decay like his teetering life from the inside out. stomach slipping in, swallowing itself. lick his ribs to feel a heartbeat. scream and smear. hyojong is his heartbeat.

 

 

 

 

hui isn't sure where hyunggu got it but he's grateful in the most twisted way and it (because it) fills hui with something he hasn't felt in so long. _you never get back to the space the first high takes you_ , hui has heard, but he doesn't want to think about that now. he writes and writes, something about candy and hyojong's lips that never seem _quite closed_ and hyuna's lips that are _always_ closed, wrapped into a seductive smile. he writes until he crashes and then he _burns_ , shrivels and moans and _oh god i can't_.

he tears his shirt off and tries to claw his heart out _that's where all the pain is coming from_. his feet flex and his toes curl and he kicks his heels into the bed. there's an itch he can't scratch and it's _everywhere_ in the back of his throat and in the center of his chest shimmering beneath his skin _in his mind_.

he wants to sleep but he can't, he grabs his neck and tries to bruise the uneasiness away. he chokes and his dry sobs and it should be _over_ already.

when he can breathe again, there's tapping on the window. hui shifts to his side, bones weighed down by an ache he can't describe. hyojong's face glistens from outside, greedy skin swallowing moonlight like his pores are vacuums, black holes of _come closer_.

he is...he is. exquisite. hui is hungry, there is an empty space between his teeth that hyojong's tongue would fit into perfectly. he sits up slowly, dizzy. hyojong smiles, beams, _radiant_. the world slams into hui with all the fury of a first kiss but _hyojong_. his rosy fingertips, reminiscent of the blush of mist that precedes his namesake, drag over the glass, lips moving around words hui shudders to imagine. oh, his _eyes_ , swirling, all-encompassing, like twin clocks counting down to a glorious rock-bottom.

hyuna's perfume burns away hui's skin, he is melting, and it all trickles away, _fades_ , save for hyojong's hydrangea lips, drawing into something too close to a kiss.

"wait," hui slurs, but wait for what? wait for him to turn back time and realize the depth of his thirst, just a minute earlier? days, months, years, they mean nothing; hui will always be a coward.

morning clumps to his eyelashes, loss an oxymoron in itself as it draws itself into sand to tumble around his stomach.

tears wrench hui's eyelids apart and disappear, dissolve, dry. he pulls the sheets to his chin and feels twice as disgusting.

shinwon opens and closes the door with the practiced care of someone who has spent years hiding behind a dusty, prim smile. shinwon must taste like boiling blood and tea leaves, chamomile heads and bee venom. (hyojong tasted like plastic mango and sugared rims and cloud matter, dirty lime and the ink of a leaky ballpoint pen lurking at the back of him but _oh god don't remember_.) hui shakes and presses a hand over his mouth. _why is swallowing tears any harder than swallowing words why is it so much harder to lie with your body why--_

"i don't want to be in love," he begs.

shinwon yanks the sheets down to the foot of the bed, watching as hui cries and curls over himself, never quite avoiding shinwon's cold gaze. it's all cold.

"then get the fuck out of bed."

 

 

 

 

hui hits shuffle and evaporates.

( _tell me i'm your baby babe bébé_ )

(if hyuna knew, what would she do? what would she say? would those cherry, no, tomato, no, wine-stained lips twist with something bitter when she looked at him? the swish of her wrist, ripple of her throat as she swallowed down _pitiful_. once, it was her who caught him crying. retching, hurting. she trailed her nails down his back, _it's okay h-hui_ , but recoiled from his sweaty skin.

so close to _hwitaek_ , but then what would _he_ do? "don't call me hwitaek," he told her at one point and she smiled, properly. an icy sort of offended.

she was already hard enough to look in the eye. hui can't decide if she is careful or one-dimensional, or maybe just perceptive. maybe she could simply _read_ him, and hui was just wasting both of their time, flinching away from weighty names and nights with her wine-stained smile, her cherry tomato voice.

 _baby, baby, baby_.)

(if hyojong knew? hui couldn't stand it.

_"hyung, where does love hurt?"_

[the doorframe, when they inevitably walk out.]

 _"the centers of your palms. they get impatient."_ )

 

 

 

 

hui's phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number. _hey_ , it writes.

hui waits, and waits. nothing happens. air rustles through the room, through his head. he is a watermill scraping against the solid mass that is frustration, sifting and sifting to find _something_ but coming up with an echo every time. _who are you_.

a bubble. typing, typing. time passes strangely when you are in the process of denying; less like predictable bricks to paint over, one after one after one, impossible to cling to but easy to count. more like a splatter of gore, try to grip them and they drip from your fingers, a taste like loss in your mouth. _typing, typing_.

read by hui at the fiftieth drop, at the half-collapsed brick, at the millionth scrape.

 _sorry, wrong number_.

midnight is edging closer, but no one in this dorm sleeps when they are supposed to. hui drags himself to the kitchen, where hongseok's humming and the bubbling of the kettle weave through the groan of the floor as hui steps over it. it's an ode to the old times, the only thing missing being a stupid and boneless e'dawn, slumped over the table and smiling at nothing. ( _how did they not realize earlier_.)

hongseok breaks into a weary smile, face like a seam of the earth as it splits open for an earthquake. "hyung," he acknowledges. hui shoves his phone into hongseok's hands.

"do you know this number?"

hongseok's face pinches, wrinkles running deeper than they used to. "yeah, that's hyojong's new number. didn't you know?"

hui's expression must show more than he planned. he bites hard on the inside of his cheek, and wonders if blood counts as calories. it's a bad habit, one he thought he pulled up from the roots long ago. turns out he only covered it up, made it pretty, trimmed what he could. it pokes its ugly head out now, preening. "i didn't know," hui declares, as if the sour-sweet filling his mouth wasn't confirmation enough. hongseok licks his lips, blinks a quick _sorry_ even though _i still can't hear what your eyes have to say_.

"i'm making noodles," hongseok tells him after a while, gesturing to the kettle. "do you want?"

there's a strange feeling that pulls hui in every direction at once, save for the one towards hongseok's familiar hands, his honest eyes. "no, i--i," hui breathes in deep. "i'm good."

he turns, tries not to run back to his room. when the door clicks quietly, hui presses his back to it. he is a good liar when it counts ( _hurts_ ) the most. and he knows. hui is not a wrong number to hyojong, he is just wrong. _wrong, wrong, wrong._

he hurls his phone across the room, hoping it smashes whatever useless fragments of hyojong's heart those four words recalled along with it. it's all wrong.

 

 

 

 

there is a space between dreaming and waking; the uncertain, wavering stretch of _wake up wake up wake up_. hui knows he is asleep. _please_.

there is something about hyuna. a dewiness in her voice when she is not speaking to be heard. a vulnerability when makeup is blurred away and stiff clothes are swapped out. she is an easy harbor, an endless pit promising honey and _i won't say a word_. too quick to smile, reassure. _wake up_.

"hwitaek," she says, something so simple. sweet when she speaks low and careful. her shapeless dress is smeared by tears when hui looks up at her, bare face cut and fractured like a diamond in this fantasy light. _you're dreaming_.

hyuna moves closer and settles next to hui. he is reminded of sand at the bottom of a glass jar, swirling up and sinking, swirling up and sinking. hypnotizing, the way she moves. she rubs her hand over his shoulders in a circuit, not noticing or not caring or maybe just memorizing the shiver that slides around hui, the click of teeth against teeth. _this isn't real_.

"you're a tease," hui murmurs. hyuna smooths her thumb over his lower lip, catching his words on the smallest grooves of her skin. "not that you realize it. i'm sorry." _this would never happen if it was real._

"stop being sorry," hyuna's eyes dim in an almost-frown she doesn't let show. she is _so close_ , and if her knowing is an uncertain thing in the present then it is indisputable in whatever abyss of pretend this is. she knows his love and this is a comfort, a curse, a fist curled around hui's throat, prepared to reel away. "you shouldn't be so sorry all the time." _don't fall in_.

her voice unfurls into something so velvety hui feels it steal years from his life. _you're asleep_.

"tell me if i'm wrong. you always knew you were going to want us more." _it'll hurt more the longer you stay_.

hui doesn't know where his grief and hyuna's regret start to bleed together. he knows that they are swimming ( _drowning_ ) wherever that happens to be. "yes," he confirms, looking ahead and not at the default of apathy he has triggered in hyuna's eyes (though he can't see much). hyuna's hands fall, fall away, and he tumbles after. _hyuna is a dream._

"oh, baby..."

hwitaek's heart lurches in hope.

he wakes.

 

 

 

 

(see? they pull away when you edge closer.)

(see? even in your dreams, she can't finish a thought. she wasn't wrong-- _you always knew you were going to want us more_.)

(but were you?)

 

 

 

 

hui doesn't like thinking about that too-long ago night. hyojong, salty sweat gleaming on his forehead and sour alcohol on his breath and sweet gloss shimmering ( _mango_ ) on his lips and a smell like all of those wrapped up and sealed with hyuna's kisses clinging to his clothes. his eyes all scared and shiny, like a quivering daisy dipped in honey. _hyung_ , he had whimpered, awfully big, awfully old to be consoled by someone whose love he never appreciated.

hui never asked what was wrong. he held and he hushed and he peeled himself away, layer after layer, for hyojong to feast upon his heart.

 _look_ , hyojong whispered after a while, voice such a private thing. his voice such a painstaking thing. _his voice_. he pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. _i'm thinking of getting another tattoo_.

slender fingers gripping too hard when hui tried to take the paper. _can i see?_

 _yes_ , hyojong breathed, hold never loosening. hui raised an eyebrow, corners of his lips turning down. _but, hyung..._

in this stretch of the memory, hui sets his mind to static. it didn't mean a thing, hyojong darting forward like a little beam of moonlight, lips suddenly on hui's, a puff of relief against his mouth. a fragile moment, then hyojong slumping, sighing, easy to sleep, quick to forget. hui scrubbing his trembling fingertips over his lower lip, something similar to panic slithering around his head.

hui had taken a deep breath, let the lingering frost of hyuna's fragrance pierce through his lungs. wanting for all the world to kiss back.

instead, he laid hyojong in his bed, waiting until he was quartered on the couch to unfold the slip of paper. carefully. he couldn't read smudges; he can't read dust.

neat script, tightly looped and vaguely familiar. _what will you regret when it's time to forget?_

hyojong never got his tattoo. hui never acknowledged the irony.

he attempts to digest this now, perhaps a year too late. at the very least, he attempts to piece the words into manageable blots to gnaw on. it's just like hyojong to take something cliché, _what will you regret not doing?_ , then let it melt in the aftermath of his beam, fold in the face of his swirling lows, flush as his eyes blossom in the sunrise after a nightmare-heavy sleep. (a mistake of a touch.)

there's incentive thrown in. death is provocative. _what will you wish you'd have done?_ hui ponders death. if it's pain the same as this, but with no way to feel hunger's vengeful cramps, no way to see those big, betrayed eyes, no way to tell warmth from cold, then hui could take it. hui could take it and beg for more: delightful, final _empty_.

nevertheless, hyojong's belief is reason enough for hui's thumb to hover over the _call_ button. his distance is reason enough for hui to press through.

one ring, two rings. hyojong, voice thick and tongue slow. "hui-hyung?"

 _thought i was a wrong number_ , hui thinks to say, but bringing up lies both of them already regret is as pointless as it sounds. let the lies rot, like apples crawling with worms in the summer heat. he holds his breath. there is rustling on the other side of the line, muffled conversation into cotton blankets.

"it's hui," hyojong must be telling hyuna. _good_ , hui thinks. the one thing that he has learned from hyojong, save for every bittersweet, crystalline memory he'd prefer to let shatter, is to follow through: do not do things partway. if you're going to scrape through someone's foundation, don't leave a thing standing.

hyuna murmurs something hui can't bother to regret missing. hyojong's tone slips lower, drowning in dust on the unused slope of _sorry_. hyojong's heart is a curious thing. "hwitaek?" hui shivers. "are you okay?"

hui grips the phone, shaking. hyuna purrs out a gentle _hui_ , letting the vowels glide into a hum. he exhales harshly. pretending he can swallow down the phantom scent of their bedsheets like air. pretending sound alone can plug the cavities laid down like bullet holes across his chest. _listening_ until he can't take it.

"hyojong, hyuna, i'm sorry," hui breathes. there is a sound like hyojong opening his mouth to a _why_ , and it drifts overhead like mist casting rainbows. hui feels a cavernous smile tease the tears from his eyes. his words splinter and falter, near nothingness. "i just love you so much."

a beat. hui imagines the creak of hyojong's fingers as they curl around hyuna's wrist.

he hangs up.

 

 

 

 

 _cleaning_ , is the excuse that hui keeps neatly tucked against his tongue, even though he can't even be bothered to brush the debris from his own heart. it's not as if he needs excuses, anyway; hongseok sleeps on the couch when he must, not at all when he can. hui searches for hyojong in their abandoned room.

lingering scent is a lie. hyojong is nowhere and it tastes like the stale air of the highway, snaking in through the taped-over cracks in the window. there is a pen from an american hotel, hardly used and forgotten under the dresser; a warped poetry book with marked-up margins that hyojong must not have cared enough about to come back for. hyojong's mattress is stripped bare and crooked on the bunk's frame. hui slowly sinks to the floor, shifting onto his back and letting out a shuddery groan.

he pauses a moment, smoothing his fingertips over his bottom lip. back, forth, back, forth. hyojong will regret him. he will regret himself.

his gaze catches on an uneven rip in the carpet under the bed, where hyojong used to stash candy. _hyung, such a bad leader, letting me get away with these_. hyojong, waggling his eyebrows, grinning with a strawberry candy gripped between his front teeth.

 _such a bad leader, wanting you to be happy_. an adoration-slopped smile, far more genuine than hui meant it to be. a sudden red blooming high on hyojong's cheekbones: _shut up hyung._

hui rolls closer, knuckles scraping against cement when he reaches under the carpet. he brushes against something cool and grainy. threads snag and undo when hui reaches with both hands, sweaty skin glipping right off the slick wood, the carpet tearing further. an old cigar box grates against the floor when hui finally pulls it free. he scrambles to his knees and clutches the slim box to his stomach, something poignant and fearful singing through his veins. this feels wrong but he is _hungry_ , selfish, and the well-worn letters on pastel stationary and smoky lined paper which greet hui when he slips the lid off speak an intimacy hyojong couldn't have left behind accidentally.

hui spreads the notes across the floor, into a careless puzzle daring him to _pick me, no me, no me_. and he does, wedges himself into the door that separates him from hyojong and hyuna and _love_ , wisps of their souls traced across the paper, delicate admiration and potent want. hui gags on his shame and doesn't realize he's crying until droplets splash onto the paper and smear the ink, but he can't stop now. he reads and ruins reads and ruins in equal, _i want it to be me i want it to be us_.

the tears are all too much, but even if it all blurs into black hui can still _feel_ the words; he presses his hands against the stacked papers and squeezes until they rip. he can imagine the warmth in hyuna's eyes as she carefully penned each phrase, _you glow when you smile_ , _i can still taste your sunrise_. he can imagine the drunk, smitten grin hyojong wore as he scribbled out _can't stop thinking about you_ , _call me honey in my dreams_. and he wants it all.

( _greedy, greedy, greedy_.)

the box isn't empty. hui pants, digging his palms into his eyes. wait, want. he pulls the box close again.

a small picture of the three of them, shiny and new. hui pinches it between two shaky fingers and twists it in the weak, dusky light. it's hyuna, pulling them both close with a dizzying beam. even through a camera lens and multiplying months, her teeth are blinding.

hui, himself, is covering his face with lace-gloved hands, flashes of a pleased grin still peeking through. _should have taken it while you still could_ , hui thinks back to himself, as if the photo could act as a mirror to the past. hyuna's fingers are tangled in the hair at the base of his skull.

hyojong is wearing a smile, face softened by something hui wishes he could have caught in real time. he is bittersweet and beautiful, wistful eyes trained on hui's lips.

 _oh god_. hui thrusts the photo across the room and drags his nails across his scalp, trying to recall the feeling of hyuna's lotus-blossom fingertips on his skin. goosebumps prick his arms.

he doesn't want to cry but it's the only pain he can take. tears coat his gums with salt when he pulls the last two items from the box.

the first is another picture; this one older, faded, crisped by lines running parallel and perpendicular in messy rectangles. it's hui alone, a photo he doesn't remember being taken. sunlight reflects back from his eyes, wide with a hope that carries through in the shaky angle.

hui turns it over and over. there's a scrawl in dull pencil on the back, hyojong's hopeless script. _want you_.

grief creeps slowly up hui's body, eyes streaming with _what if_ 's and _never enough was it_. he raises the last fragment of love left to his lips. hyojong's ring, cruel and cold and bare, slipping over hui's finger with an ease that says everything and nothing. every wonder-soaked memory loops together and around his neck, dragging him down further, further, further.

with the last fumes of strength in his achy hands, hui pries each perfect gem from its setting. lines them up, diamonds or rubies or plastic, he can't tell in the dark. blood pools up, over his nails, and smothers them.

ah. there's regret, sweeping hui's feet from under him. he cries out. remorse is hyuna's perfume filling up his lungs, dazzling him. agony is hyojong's voice, sweet in this ragged night, acute and indulgent in his mind.

_and if we wanted you back?_

there is a stone for each word.

one by one, hui swallows them.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are loved and cherished forever!


End file.
